III    Third Year English  for English majors (M-Z)
Terza annualità per gli studenti di inglese prima lingua, cognomi M-Z

Module:  “Methodologies for the study of contemporary English”

Regulations, credits - Regolamenti, CFU> 
Assessment - Esame: contenuti e date> 
Roll - Registro iscrizioni-presenze-voti> 
Office hours - Ore di ricevimento> 

 <Programma e testi - Syllabus, set texts
 <Sunto delle lezioni - Recap of lessons
 <Attività di ricerca - Research tasks
 <Notizie, avvisi - News, Messages

 "Credito di Laboratorio", Istruzioni: cliccare>: <Click for Supplementary Credit of  1 CFU.   

 Mondays and Fridays, 12-2 pm, Room B 
 Lunedì e venerdì,   ore 12-14,  aula  B 

SYLLABUS,  SET TEXTS,  HANDOUTS 
 

Syllabus 

 
“Methodologies for the study of contemporary English”

     Success or failure in intercultural communication in English (both in Native/Non-Native or Non-Native/Non-Native encounters) depends only to a certain extent on the speakers' mastery of English vocabulary, syntax and phonology. What are the other communicative instruments that speakers need to master? What parameters can be devised to describe the adequate or inadequate use of these instruments? How can students use this knowledge to guide their "permanent education" as linguistic-cultural mediators?
 
     The present course will seek answers through individual and group reflection and experimentation, inside and outside the classroom.
 
     Meanwhile, in your Lettori courses you will be acquiring formal competence in contemporary R.P. English – at level B2 (production) and C1 (reception) or higher – through class and lab work.

The organizational aspects of the module -- requirements and credits, evaluation 
   criteria and so on – are indicated in the main menu.   The Reading List follows.   
 

 Set texts
("programma")

1. M. Clyne. 1996. Inter-cultural Communication at Work: Cultural Values in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.   Available at university book stores.
   Note: Attenders read chapters 3 and 4; non attenders read all chapters (1 to 7 plus Appendixes).

2. P. Kistler and S. Konivuori,(eds.). 2003.  From International Exchanges to Intercultural Communication. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä Press.  
   Thanks to permission granted by the authors, photocopies of the book may be had at Pronto Stampa, via Ostienese 461.
   Note: Attenders read chapters 2 (by Marie-Thérèse Claes), 5 (by Bernd Müller-Jacquier), and 9 (by Liisa Salo-Lee): non attenders read entire book (chapters 1 to 10).

3. P. Boylan. 2003. Review of L.R. Kohls "Learning to Think Korean". Book Reviews, Delta Intercultural Academy (www.dialogin.com).   For both attenders and non attenders. 
   To read the text click here>    To download the text click here> . 
   Note: Only the downloaded version is divided into sections for group work.

4. "Avviso sull'esame".   
   To read the text click here>    To download the text click here> . 
   Note: Although aimed at non-attenders, the text constitutes exam material for all students since it analyses what it means to "know" English in the context of the exams for this Course.  (International students: read the English version; Italian students: read the Italian version as it discusses your particular situation in more detail).

 Handouts 
 
("Dispense per i soli frequentanti -- i non frequentanti NON devono leggere questi testi.")

<cliccare                     "Learning language as culture" (in italiano)
 
Documento storico di 20 anni fa: è il Manifesto (la prima dichiarazione di principio scritto in lingua italiana) di una nuova concezione di apprendimento delle lingue vive, basata sull'introiezione culturale.
La pagina riprodotta è la Postfazione al volume Accenti sull'America di Patrick Boylan, Roma: Armando Curcio Editore, 1987, p. 387. In glottodidattica, "Learning language as culture" viene chiamato anche "l'approccio comunicativo-culturale". 

     
Linda Beamer – Cultural Parameters Illustrated: How to predict communication friction. Warning: To see this text, your computer must have a Power Point Viewer (most do).  You can get one free at www.microsoft.com  (enter “PowerPoint viewer” in the search box or, for a direct link, click here).
 

 
Common European Framework of Reference (CEF)
You'll hear teachers at Roma Tre (and elsewhere) speak of the Common European Framework (CEF) levels of competence in a second language. For example, our university entry test is targeted for Level B1 in reading ability and A2 in speaking ability. What does this mean? Click the orange dot if you want to know more about the system (which many people criticize as simplistic, so it will probably undergo change in the near future).
 

Learn English on the Internet... FREE (no fees to teachers or schools!)
Clicking on the orange dot will open a page full of Internet sites where you can practice and extend your English. But you have to know how to distinguish what sites are most useful to you. This means asking yourself (1.) what learning English really means and thus (2.) what kinds of competence you need to acquire and only then (3.) what exercises are best for you.

Return to Menu 

     LESSONS     

 Please form groups of 6-8 students and
sit together in one of the colored areas below:

                                         Room B

 
           Seating Arrangement of groups
 
Groups consist of 6/8 students, 3 (or 4) in front and as many behind, like this:
              
This arrangement allows everyone to participate in the group discussions.
 

     
AFTER EACH LESSON, SEE HERE FOR THE SLIDES/NOTES USED.
 

 Overall purpose of course: see handout Learning language as culture

 3.3

 
Introducing the concepts on which the course (which begins on March 6) will be built:
 
 Culture = a “will to be”, i. e. a voler essere in a certain way. For example, a “romano de Roma” has a “will to be” in a certain characteristic way and you can hear it in his language and expressive habits. In the English-speaking world, the same is true for a Black American from Harlem, an East-End Londoner, or a New Zealand professor trying to be an English gentleman, as we saw in the film (he was a mixture of New Zealander culture and pronunciation, with academic culture and a professorial way of enunciating and, at moments, English upper class culture and R.P. pronunciation...). Each “will to be” produces a particular vision of the world (in German, Weltanschauung) which then conditions what is subsequently viewed (it forms a “Gestalt” or “form” which we tend subsequently to impose on what we see, until we accept to change it). And, as just indicated, it is associated with a characteristic way of expressing oneself.

Language = a “will to mean” (un voler dire) in a communicative situation, that is an emanation of one's “will to be”. It includes all behavior: speech which is verbal behavior, gestures, facial and bodily expression, management of space and time.... The sedimentation (in the mind) of multiple communicative acts produces a disposition to communicate in the future in a similar way. We call the verbal part of that overall behavior this or that “language” (using the term “language” restrictively). In other words, the sedimentation of speech acts over time produces a specific historical “language” -- Italian, English, Chinese, Hindi (again, we are using the term “language” very restrictively here).  In other words, we develop a verbal language and expressive habits that qualify us (to our interlocutors) as, for example, a Romano de Roma speaking a typical variety of Italian and using typical expressive habits sedimented over the centuries but that many Italians still consider as disreputable, or as a Black speaking a characteristic vernacular that is an integral part of the family of Englishes but that many white Americans consider disreputable, or as an Eastender speaking another historically-marked variety of English that has spread from London to Australia and elsewhere but that many Brits consider disreputable, or as a cultivated New Zealander (as in the case of the professor in the film clip we saw...) attempting to be an R.P. speaker of English and thus a proper English gentleman, not entirely successfully.

In philosophical (Aristotelean) terms, we can therefore speak of language as the essence of a communicative act.  That essence becomes being through the actualization of the various behavioral repertories at our disposition (facial language, gestural language, verbal language, etc.).  In other words, we use these repertories to give form to some kind of material (sound waves, body positions...) and thus to create the substance we call “utterance” (enunciato) which makes our communicative intent perceptible.  But, properly speaking, language is not that substance (neither the material sound waves nor the lexicosyntactic forms, which grammarians love to study): it is the underlying essence.  That essence is the particular communicative intent erupting in a particular communicative event (Saussurian parole, although Saussure was speaking only of the verbal repertory used) as well as the sedimentation over time of the characteristic features of those modulations of intent producing a disposition to express oneself in a consistent way – this is what Saussure calls langue (although he was speaking only of the verbal repertory used, which is the “outside”, not of what makes the verbal material take the particular form it takes, which is the essence of language).

Learning English therefore means more than learning words (or even words and “gestures”). It also means learning the “will to be” that produces the characteristic “will to mean” that native speakers of English manifest (with with idiosyncratic and cultural attributes that mark them as African Americans, Eastenders, Kiwis...). 

This means that in an English class in an Italian University where students learn to express themselves in English, the overall behavior should also be different from what those same Italian students would produce in one of their other courses (philology, Italian literature..). These differences include the gestures and facial expressions, the way themes are discussed, the way of interrupting (or not interrupting), the way of joking, the attitude towards “talking during the lesson” or “cheating on exams”, etc.

Practical issues
Group formation is now definitive. Group leader for next week = L1 (not L2 as mistakenly indicated on the handout). Explanation of web site www.boylan.it – please read it thoroughly. The page TEACHING contains much useful information for you as students at Roma Tre. The page THIRD YEAR ENGLISH contains important information about REGULATIONS, the course SYLLABUS, ASSESSMENT, etc. Please read the entire page and all links.
 

 6.3

 Notion of “linguistics” (the systematic study of languages and “language”).. 
 
The classical definition of “language” = semiotic code (content+expression=sign).

My definition: “ an overall modulation of social behaviour created by repeated reactions to meaning-sharing events and by repeated attempts at (co-)producing such events in response to a felt need to represent something (to oneself, to others), to do something (through representation), and in any case to be something (through representation) (Boylan 2000:4).
 
If you define language the first way, you study, in a speech event, the formal properties of the code used, i. e. the relationship between verbal forms (lexico-syntax) and semantic representations (mental images).  But if you define language the second way, you study the relationship between total observed behavior (including silences and immobility, i. e. zero formal properties!) and intentionality (which you hypothesize through empathic interaction).
 
In either case you can use qualitative and/or quantitative methods. But in neither case will you end up describing “objective” regularities or “laws”.  In the last 100 years most scientists have in fact abandoned the presence of establishing “laws”.  They now describe the product of their research as protocols of observed phenomena.  Moreover they recognize that all scientific inquiry, from physics to literary studies, is fundamentally hermeneutics.  Through a fusion of horizons (Gadamer, 1960) with the Other, we incorporate that Other into our universe (the “Other” which we are attempting to understand can be a speaker of another language or, in physics, the behavior of atomic particles).
 
This is the attitude we will take in this course as we study ways of grasping the meaning-making events in English we call communication between native and non-speakers of English (or between two non-native speakers using English as a lingua franca).
 
Of course, since it is you who will be doing the research, you are free to take another view of language, of scientific inquiry and of ways to study communicative events. In fact, you can even claim to discover “laws” in your observations.  The only requirement that this course imposes on you is that you justify your assertions in an explicit, replicable way.
 

 10-3

 Question basic concepts

communication = establishing a relationship language = one's will to mean (<one's will to be)
 
a language = behavioral matrix (sedimentation)
 
English = a Métis family of idioms (divergent wills to mean)
 
knowledge = a volitive state (cognitive post hoc)
 
to learn = acquire such a state to teach = get out of the way and let students learn
 
(Concepts explained in the articles on www.boylan.it > research.)

Homework: Read “Learning to think Korean” and be prepared to explain one of the parts (indicated by a color). Decide in your group who covers each part – all the parts must be covered so some people will do two colors.

 13-3

 Test on notions covered last time. Result: almost everyone defines things as I do.
Is this a class or a religious sect?
We'll have to do better in the future.
Brief explanation of the Kohl review.
Homework for next time: see Task 1.

 17-3

 The rationale of the 4-step Repair Routine (How to ask for a clarification):
pinpoint what you don't know so that your interlocutor does not rephrase everything.
The best way of pinpointing: repeating what you do understand and adding a question word
(“You said you want to take a trip...when?”)
As a double check, verify by repeating what you heard again: “Did you say 'next June'?
----
Explanation of the Lab Credit: conducting an interview using two chapters from Clyne.
The interview will aim at testing a way of understanding cultures different from Kohl's attempt.
The research for the Lab Credit will be conducted between April 24^th and the end of May.
------
Alternative Lab Credit activity: writing a scenario explaining an Italian value to an American collegiate public, then enacting it before a small group of Trinity College students.
On March 30^th, those who choose this activity should go to Trinity for an evening.
Details on project here.>  
If you want to do it, decide by Monday (20.3), turn in text by Friday (24.3), I will choose one of the scenarios of your group by Monday (27.3), you will prepare acting it out between the 27^th and the 31^st. As just mentioned, on the 30^th you will go to Trinity College to invite and get to know your future spectators. Get the American students to come to Roma Tre on Monday April 3^rd , if possible.
 

 20-3

     
Apologies for loosing temper.
Surprise by the reaction (or rather, lack of reaction) by the students.
A pity: it is necessity to have a proactive stance if you want to work in today's world.
(“proactive”: Instead of waiting for me to take an initiative, YOU take the initiative.)

In this case, the initiative is: How to transform a Critical Incident into a Learning Occasion?
Answer: by translating Kohl's (and, on this web page, Beamer's) formulas into practice,
and seeing if they permit you to understand an American teacher's mentality and sensitivity.
And, although it may not seem necessary, to see if you understand the mentality and sensitivity of a fellow Italian student (Francesca) in her reaction to Friday's Critical Incident.

If Kohl's and Beamer's cultural dimensions aren't enough to “get a hold” on what happened, you should start thinking about what interpretive model and hermeneutic procedure you need to situate yourself WITHIN the world of someone with different cultural values from yours. This is the object of the homework assignment in tasks:

24-3 

Cultural differences between Anglo and Italian university students in the classroom>
 
Pamela asked for help in using Beamer to interpret the Critical Incident for your current assignment. I answered her at length. (The first half is in English, the second half is in Italian.) You can read the answer “for inspiration” here>  
 
Presentation by Claudio and Roberta: the difference between qualitative and quantitative research (Roberta) and the biases researchers inevitably have and must guard themselves against (Claudio). Thanks to our two guests!

27-3 

 Critique of first Research Task: “Explaining the Kohl review using British Academic English.”
 Characteristics of British Academic English:
Concept of hedging.
Concept of “linear” writing (and latent ethnocentrism of the concept in Kaplan).>
Concept of “objective” versus “responsible” writing.
 
 Here are the skits selected for Friday's presentation to a few Trinity College students (let's hope you're able to convince them to come!)>

31-3 

 
Critique of the Intercultural Reports turned in so far.  For two examples: click here>  
 
The concept of intercultural mediation as translation (and translation as intercultural mediation).

STATO ---------1-------------> ESPRESSIONE ---------2-----------> STATO ecc.

Translation occurs not from expression to expression but from one existential state in one linguistic-cultural context, to a functionally analogous (not simply homologous) existential state in another linguistic-cultural context 
 
For further details on translation theory, click here>  
 
For an example of translating from one state to another state, the class is asked to do an assignment:
Translate this quote from Edmund Burke (18th-century English political philosopher): "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Target public: Roma Tre students who see the epigram in class as a screen saver.
 
 
AFTER CLASS: (2 TO 3 PM): CREDITO LABORATORIO
Three intercultural skits presented for trinity college students
Group B: Donatella Vicenti's “The Bed” (profound !)
Group D: Erika Tinelli's “Day at the Beach” (hilarious !)
Group G: Francesca Berardi's “The essence of amusement” (thought-provoking !)
 

3-4

     
 Further discussion on Resolving the Critical Incident.
 
Read my comments – IN YELLOW – on Martina's and Irene's proposals here>  
They contain (I believe) the key to the intercultural approach that (hopefully) you will put into practice during your interview.
 
Explanation of Task 3: provoking a critical incident and resolving it
(or simply asking questions that permit you to decide if you have understood your interlocutor's world view).
 

10-4 

 The Trinity students' opinion about “i” in the American classroom:
 Here are four excerpts (click on each title) from a typical interview concerning:

Coming late to lessons  Chatting during lessons  Cheating on exams  Copying homework

 
Handoujt:  Further discussion on the various translations of Burke's epigram >  

 

Return to Menu 

     
A few students earned the Lab Credit (1 cfu) during the 1^st semester by participating in a theatrical evening at Trinity College. Here is an explanation, their names and their marks> 

Here are the additional skits selected for the show on Friday:, besides Donatella Vincenti's “The Bed”:

Group D: Erika Tinelli's hilarious “Day at the Beach”
 
Group G: Francesca Berardi's thought-provoking “The essence of amusement”

April 3^rd – To complete this assignment, the Director will give me a sheet of paper with marks for her actors' performance and both the Director and the actors will give me a sheet of paper, written IN ENGLISH individually not as a group, with a comment on how successfully the play communicated an Italian value to the American public.  (Base your comment on your interview of the American students who attended the performance). I will judge the Director's directing ability.

The final mark for each student will be a combination of the value of each student's play (TWO STUDENTS HAVE NOT GIVEN ME A PLAY, PLEASE DO SO IMMEDIATELY) whether performed or not, the value of the acting/directing ability and, finally, the value of the final report.
 
 

 
TASK 1
Discussing (while practicing Academic English ) the critique of Kohl's use of “dimensions” to explain cultural differences and to promote better understanding.
Due date: March 17th

Make a Group List of Features of British Academic Discussion Style that the members of the group consider understandable, important, and easy to put into practice for the recorded discussion session.   (Many web sites give such criteria. I give some below, too: you can use them if you don't find any others.) The group leader writes them on the back of the evaluation sheet:

Click for the evaluation sheet> 

Then organize a group discussion on the text "Learning to Think Korean". Be active as listeners, interrupting for clarification (use gambits to be polite), backchanneling, focusing your gaze on the speaker. When it is your turn to present the paragraphs you have studied, use the British Academic Speech characteristics that your group has selected as important. After the recording the group leader will listen to the cassette and evaluate everyone: you can participate in the evaluation and offer your comments.  You will be evaluated not only on how you speak as a presenter, but also on how you intervene as a listener using the 4-step questioning technique:

Click for 4-step questioning technique> 

EXAMPLE OF EVALUATION CRITERIA THAT A GROUP COULD INDICATE
(N.B. If a group puts down these or other criteria, then group members must respect them to get a good mark!)

“Students' delivery should accommodate to stereotypical UK informal academic discussions. As a:
 
 -  presenter: expressive fluency and accuracy (or at least intelligibility), R.P. or Estuary accent with clear diction, academic register, idiomatic metalinguistic gambits, "inverted pyramid" exposition, inductive reasoning, constrained style.   This time Group Leaders, in giving points, will focus on fluency (no "uhhhh's"; pauses at end of utterances, not during) and metalinguistic gambits (idioms used to signal discourse structuring).    POINTS: 0 = not fluent and not many gambits;    1 = either fluent or many gambits but not both;    2 = both fluent and many gambits.
 
 -  listener: attentive direct gaze, constant back-channeling, overlap to request clarification but no multiple floor taking, Group Leader selected (NOT self-selected) turns, 4-step questioning (all 4 steps explained in the handout must be used). .   This time the Group Leader, in assigning points, will focus on back-channeling and 4-step questioning.    POINTS: 0 = no back-channeling, no questions; 1 = either frequent back-channeling or many 4-step questions but not both;    2 = frequent back-channeling and many 4-step questions.
 
 -  group member. 1 point for contributing to organizing, conducting, marking recording session.”
 

FINAL NOTE: I will compare the group leader's evaluation with what I hear on the cassette. I will not change the marks given by the Group Leader, but if I think s/he was irresponsible, s/he will get zero (not the student s/he judged irresponsibly). I will ask any student who in my opinion gives a poor explanation of the text or has a poor delivery to RE-DO THE EXERCISE. Again, I won't change his/her mark, but s/he will have to do the exercise over, until satisfactory, for the mark to count. -- Patrick

 TASK 2
Using English for Intercultural Mediation between Anglos and Italians
Due date: March 24th

Make a list of questions and behaviors that, you could* have put/applied (1.) to Francesca and (2.) to me this morning, in an attempt to transform Friday's Critical Incident into an Occasion for Learning for both of us, based on real understanding of the other's mentality and sensibility. (At present there doesn't seem to be much mutual understanding.).

*”could” means IF YOU HAD BEEN PROACTIVE
(see the explanation of this work under Recap of Lesson),

Use what you learned from reading the review of Kohl, plus Beamer's “cultural dimensions”, in formulating your questions and deciding your hermeneutic strategy.    If you find that Kohl and Beamer are not enough (a very likely event), then you will have to invent an ad hoc strategy that you could* have applied this morning, March 20th.

*”could” means IF YOU HAD BEEN PROACTIVE
(see the explanation of this work under Recap of Lesson),

Write a short report (at least one page) in Italian in which you explain the rationale of your questions and behavior. (“Behavior” means that, this morning, you could have not only asked Francesca and me questions, but you could have also interacted differently with us, in order to understand the values and pulsions behind our reactions Friday. Were they cultural (common with our speech community)?  Were they psychological (specific to us as individuals)?  This is what you must discover, PLUS a strategy for helping us turn our differences into a constructive relationship based on authentic understanding of each other.

N.B. Furnish a list of questions and interactive strategies in English. Your discussion of the principles behind the list will be in Italian, but the actual words you say will be in English since that is what you would have used if our lesson had been conducted as usual.

Your words and behavior should show that you have understood both Francesa's and my point of view, however radically different they are. In addition, your words and behavior should enable us to understand each other and start to communicate without misunderstandings.

 
Pamela's email
 
Pamela asked for help in using Beamer to interpret the Critical Incident for your current assignment.  I answered her at length.  (The first half is in English, the second half is in Italian.)  You can read the answer “for inspiration” here>   
 
 
Pamela II, La Vendetta.
 
I wrote another email to Pamela, of interest to all of you who have done, or are doing, the assignmente "How to transform an intercultural critical incident into a learning experience".
 
You can read this second email here   

 
March 28^th  --  Those who did not turn in their papers on Monday are kindly requested to do the whole paper in English. For some arcane reason I wrote “Italian” above (perhaps because the metadiscoursal comment is something that should hit home) but in reality, in the world of international organizations, you will be asked to write everything in English, including the justification for your proposal of intercultural mediation.
 

 
TASK 3 – first part
Translation as intercultural communication
Due date: April 21^st or before.

On the basis of our theoretical description of the translation process discussed in class (using the translation of an epigram by Burke as an example>  ) do the activity described below in the second part of Task 3. .
 
 

 
TASK 4
Due date: April 24^th or before.
Testing a hypothesis about the cultural mind set of an interlocutor.
(You can do one of two possible tests:

1) quantitative research: a questionnaire to test your impressions of the person's cultural mind set;:

2) qualitative research: using empathy – and your understanding of the person's cultural mind set – to resolve a critical incident that you have provoked.

Since I have put this information late on the web site,
if you have already begun doing something different, continue with what you are doing.

_____________________________________________

THE PROJECT
_____________________________________________

Testing your understanding of the cultural mind set
of a native speaker of English.

To make the experiment more interesting, the native should be a speaker of a marginal variety of an "inner circle" English or ANY of the Englishes from the outer circle (second ring), as described by Kachru here.  In a word, choose any native speaker of English who uses a variety of English other than R.P. (British Received Pronunciation) or G.A. (General American). (Again, if you have already begun with a mainstream speaker, continue with what you have begun.)

You must first conduct a recorded conversation with this person, then transcribe and analyze the recording. To maximize spontaneity, the recorder should not be visible. 

Note: The laws of privacy do not forbid recording a person; they forbid making the recording public without the person's consent.  You may therefore explain to your interviewee, after the conversation, that you have recorded it for a university assignment and that if s/he has any objection, you will erase the tape immediately, on the spot, In any case, you should eliminate from your transcription any indications which could be used to identify the speaker(s),)   If you do not feel comfortable using a hidden recorder, then use the recorder out in the open.

(Again, if you have already conducted your experiment and you did not record it, proceed with what you have done already.)

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

If you have chosen to do the quantitative experiment, you must first decide what parameters or dimensions (or any other construct you choose) will help you understand and describe the mind set of a marginal native speaker. Let us imagine that you have decided to use one of Beamer's (Hofstede's) dimensions> .  . You will then hypothesize where your native speaker lies, with respect to you as a typical Italian (or whatever you are), along that dimension. Finally you will elaborate a questionnaire which will enable you to determine if where you have positioned the native speaker corresponds to the way that person effectively thinks, acts and speaks.

Your questionnaire will be composed of there types of questions:
 
DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS

(a.) Grand Tour questions: Let your informant talk freely about a subject that is NOT the Dimension you are interested in, but leads to it. Example: If you are interested in the Meritocratic-Cooptation dimension, talk about getting a job in Italy: what you must do, etc. and only then by what criteria it is decided. In other words, take a Grand Tour before arriving at the specific question that interests you.
(b.) Language questions and Example/Anecdote questions: If your informant says a word that is not clear to you, get her/him to explain it. IF s/he says something general, ask for an example. For instance, if s/he says: "Yeah, I applied to a lot of computer companies for a summer job, but the usual people got in", ask her/him what s/he means by "usual people" and then ask her/him to give an example, so you can check your understanding. Or tell an (invented) anecdote and see the reaction: "I saw a story on TV (in reality, you've invented it):Bush's brother, who is the Governor of Florida. gives out summer jobs to students who campaign for him! What do you think of this?"

STRUCTURAL QUESTIONS

Cover term and Included term questions: If you want your informant to express a position, ask a naive question about the general ("cover") meaning of a term or about whether the term belongs in a certain category. Example: If you want to see if you and your informant both mean the same thing by "letter of recommendation", you can ask: "So in the general category of 'acceptable ways to get a job', you would include letters of recommendation, right?" ("Yes!") "But I'm not sure what you call a 'letter of recommendation'. For example, in Italy a Prelate or a politician can write a letter asking a state agency to hire you. And it often works, because the agency wants to keep good relations with the Vatican and with Parliament. Is this what you mean by a 'letter of recommendation?'" If your American informant says "No, in America that's a crime!", you can then go back to (1.) and ask an example question: "Well, what would be an example of an acceptable letter recommending you?" Your informant will probably say: "It will just say I've worked for X and that X is satisfied with my work."
 
CONTRAST QUESTIONS
 
Contrast verification questions: When you think you have understood your informant, make a summary of what you think he has said and ask him if you have understood correctly. For example, you could say: "So, in conclusion, you are in favor of 'letters of recommendation' to help people get a job, but only certain kinds, right?" ("Yeah, that's right!")   "So let me recap... Tell me if you are in favor of: letters attesting work done, letters certifying studies, letters of character reference, letters putting political pressure on the employer, letters invoking mutual friendship between sender and employer." Your informant will probably answer: "Yes - yes - yes - no – perhaps."

Once you have completed your questionnaire, decide what population you want to investigate. If you choose the Bengali rose sellers (the ones who appear in restaurants at night), since English is a former national language in Bangladesh, then you will decide where they should be placed on your cultural dimension chart, you will have prepared questions to verify if your hypothesis is correct, and you will choose 10 Bengalis at random in the Center of Rome on a given evening. (Since there are approximately 1000 Bengalis in Rome, 10 constitute 1 % and if they are truly random 1% is already a fairly reliable sample.) 

Then you will present your statistics: how many answered which questions the way you predicted and how many didn't. Finally you will draw your conclusions, indicating to what degree you believe your data prove what you claim.

Your report, typed on a computer, should be 2 or 3 pages and it should indicate the questionnaire as an appendix.. As to form, the paper is to be addressed to the British academic community, so you should research on the Internet what the norms are – see, for example, here> .

In your report, the first thing you will do, before you begin to explain your procedure, is to give your conclusion (briefly). Then you will present your method and procedures. Then, you will state your conclusion once again, except this time you will develop it more in detail. Finally you will conclude with an evaluation of the worth of your inquiry – its scientific value (does it really demonstrate anything?), its didactic value (does it help you as a non-native speaker improve your English?), its personal worth (is it rewarding and satisfying as an intellectual endeavor?)..

 

 
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

You will attempt to provoke a critical incident with your marginal native speaker, after having made a hypothesis about his(her mind set and after having made a hypothesis about how to resolve the critical incident. given his/her mind set.

This means you will probably have to see the person twice. The first time will permit you to formulate hypotheses about his/her mind set. You can use one of Beamer' (Hofstede's) dimensions, for example> .   Then, back home, you will invent a critical incident, based on the gap between the Italian position and the Anglo position on the cultural dimension, and will invent a strategy that will help the marginal native speaker to stop being upset over the incident, to “get into the Italian world” and to accept Italian values more.

But before you can do all this, you must first enter HIS/HER Anglo world, to understand it from the inside. Will your first conversation enable you to do this? It will if
 
!. you have already found the right parameters to look for and to test, in conversing with him/her, and if
 
2. you manage to put your own culture between brackets, so that you can listen to him/her without your usual conceptions and preconceptions – as an ignorant newcomer to his/her culture, who has everything to learn.   
 
In addition, you should read carefully the three explanations given in this course that define what it means to come to grasp another mind set: Pamela 1>     Pamela 2>     Martina and Irene>  

Remember Labov's “observer's paradox” when you design your experiment : The way your subject will react will not only depend on your provocation, but also on the context (who is watching him/her? What time is it and is s/he tired or in a rush? etc. etc.) in which there is YOU.  Since you are an Italian student “investigating” him/her, s/he will tend to live her/his superego more than her/his pulsions.   (Our superegos are the “official” instances that we learn from childhood and try to live up to, in order to be socially accepted.) Indeed, since you are Italian, your subject will probably live the parts of her/his superego that correspond to an idealized style of harmonious interaction with an Italian.) 

One way to avoid Labov's Observer's Paradox is to use misdirection: you get your subject to concentrate on one task, while your REAL purpose is the second task (which is done more spontaneously since s/he is concentrating on the first task).

For example let us imagine that you want to do the following experiment: you want to ask her/him to select pictures of good looking Italians, according to his/her cultural standards, and you can try to provoke a critical incident by saying “Hey, you are avoiding all the people who have long aquiline noses like me, you are a racist!”.  In reality you probably will not succeed in carrying out this experiment because your subject won't let you. Because of the observer's paradox, the subject will probably force herself/himself to choose Italians with longer aquiline noses than what s/he normally likes, because s/he will automatically try to be cooperative with you and share (what s/he thinks is) your Italian idea of beauty. 

So this would not be a good experimental setup.  But you could use this experiment as misdirection.

You could present it as the real experiment (it isn't) and while your subject is choosing the pictures, you provoke the real incident – for example, sitting closer and closer to him/her to see if the subject's cultural value of proximity makes him uncomfortable; if it does, s/he will take the first opportunity (which you arrange for) to move away from you.  

Once you have decided on the incident you must then invent the remedy. And when both are ready, you can return and meet with your subject a second time. It is a good idea to have a recorder on, to verify afterwards what s/he says. (A videocamera would be best, of course, since body language is so important.)

What might the remedy be?  In the example just given, if your subject has the typical Anglo desire to sit at least 50 cm (and usually more) from you, you could get her/him to see the positive value of physical proximity. If you succeed, you can take him/her to the Segreteria studenti and have him/her stand in line, physically touching other people, pushing to get ahead, etc. etc. (In Anglo queues, there are always at least 50 cm between each person.) If your subject says that he has begun to like the contact, you have succeeded in getting him to share the value that at first was the cause of a critical incident with you, when he began to feel uncomfortable while choosing pictures because you started sitting too close.

How can you get your subject to change in such a short time? Normally you can't. But you can at least do a verbal experiment in which, after explaining the Italian value of physical contact (just like you tried to get Francesca to share my values and me to share Francesca's values in class), you get her/him to smile at thinking of acting like an Italian in an Italian queue. Maybe s/he will smile at the thought and not enjoy the reality, but at least smiling at the thought is a first step forward: s/he has begun to understand you. Not bad after only two encounters.

Finally, you will write your report in which you describe your experiment and draw your conclusions, indicating to what degree you believe your experiment proves that you did understand the cultural value that you tested.

Your report, typed on a computer, should be 2 or 3 pages.. As to form, the paper is to be addressed to the British academic community, so you should research on the Internet what the norms are – see, for example, here> .

In your report, the first thing you will do, before you begin to explain your procedure, is to give your conclusion (briefly). Then you will present your method and procedures. Then, you will state your conclusion once again, except this time you will develop it more in detail. Finally you will conclude with an evaluation of the worth of your inquiry – its scientific value (does it really demonstrate anything?), its didactic value (does it help you as a non-native speaker improve your English?), its personal worth (is it rewarding and satisfying as an intellectual endeavor?)..

 

Practical considerations for either project

“Where can I find native speakers of English in Rome?”

1. Use the list of places you will find here >

2. Use your imagination.
     Some students go to Ciampino airport when the RyanAir plane from London or Glasgow or Belfast arrives (according to whether they would like to interview a Brit, a Scotsman or an Irishman -- you can check here). The students do NOT go by car, they take the bus from via Marsala: Terravision Ciampino-Roma Bus Lines, www.terravision.it 06 79494572 Then, on the bus coming back to Rome, they sit next to one of the passengers who has just come from Scotland or Ireland or London and converse with him with a hidden tape recorder.
    Other students visit the hostels (cheap hotels for students) and bed-and-breakfast places around via Marsala. They ask if there are any guests from Ireland, Scotland, London etc. and, if there are, the students invite the young tourist(s) to have a cup of tea in exchange for an interview.

What do you mean when you say “evaluate the scientific worth” of our projects?
 
THE PURPOSE OF THIS TASK IS NOT JUST TO LEARN A FEW WORDS OF ENGLISH. YOU CAN DO THAT WITH A DICTIONARY. IT IS NOT TO SPEAK A FEW WORDS IN ENGLISH -- YOU CAN DO THAT WITH ANYONE YOU MEET IN A PUB AT CAMPO DEI' FIORI. IT IS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO "KNOW" SOMETHING ABOUT ENGLISH. THAT IS WHY IT IS PART OF A UNIVERSITY COURSE IN ENGLISH.
 
Let me give you an example of what it means to do linguistic research and, at the same time, continually ask yourself the meaning of the methods and methodology you use.
 
If you read in an Italian dictionary that "cocomero" is "anguria nel dialetto del Lazio", should you believe this affirmation ? How does the lexicographer know? Maybe that is just his impression. Maybe you can find the word in Abruzzo and Campana and Puglia, so it is not just "del Lazio". Maybe people use it all over Italy today, so now it is not dialect but standard Italian. Maybe it was derived from the word used in Latin and was therefore used in Toscana for centuries but then the Tuscans switched to "anguria", a word imported from the northern regions. So maybe it is "anguria" which should be considered dialectal, not “cocomero”. Or perhaps... etc. etc.

So you can decide that you will do scientific (linguistic) research to find out “the truth”.

So you formulate a hypotheses, for example that in fact "cocomero" is indeed "anguria nel dialetto del Lazio". Then you get in a car, drive around Lazio, Toscana, Abruzzo etc., show people a picture of a watermelon and ask them what it is called.

But maybe you get bad results. Maybe your informants in Abruzzo say “anguria” and not “cocomero” to YOU (while they say “cocomero” among each other just like Laziali) because they know the word “anguria” from school and want to sound "educated" to an outsider like you.

So if you start thinking critically of what you are doing as research methodology, you will probably realize that you have to invent a way of asking the question to get an honest answer   Otherwise, after your travels around Central and Southern Italy, you will not have localized the word accurately and will risk making an isogloss that does not describe real usage.

So how do you know if you have invented a way of asking a question that gives you honest answers?

The answer is that you never know. Scientific knowledge is always difficult to obtain and uncertain. You can be confident in your findings only to a certain extent.

To what extent? This is what you will discuss after doing your research on understanding another person's cultural mind set. The bottom line is that a “scientific inquiry” is “scientific, not because it “demonstrates objectively the truth” but only because:

1) it makes its premises and reasonings explicit (so that anyone can criticize them and suggest perhaps better ways – and you should be the first to criticize them);

2) it implements a procedure that can be “replicated” (duplicated) by anyone, to see if the same results are obtained.

In conclusion, your report should present your conclusions as “evidence to support this or that hypothesis”, but only evidence (not “objective fact”); it should make premises and reasonings and procedures explicit and therefore accountable and, finally, it should give enough details so that anyone can replicate the experiment.

TASK 3 – second part
Translation as intercultural communication
Due date: April 24^th or before.

After reading the translation theory in the handout >  , do a SEMANTIC, METATEXTUAL and COMMUNICATIVE translation of a scene 6a between Roxanne and her Mum (working class Londoners speaking Estuary English) in the Mike Leigh film Secrets and Lies (Channel Four Films, London, 1996).>  . (Sotto la fotografia c'è una seconda pallina arancione: cliccarla per sentire la colonna sonora del film.)  Your target audience is composed of youngish (25-45), middle-upper class, intellectual, mostly progressive Italians -- the cinema d'essai public.  Your translation is not for dubbing so do not worry about length, rhythm, prominent syllables, and the like; it is for an article that is to be written about this scene, from a sociocultural standpoint, in a cinema magazine.  Your task is to give the author of the article a translation in Italian as rich as the original, so that, after alluding to the features in the English script, s/he can find ready equivalents in your Italian translation. 
 
EXAMPLE: Imagine that in the original text the daughter says to her mother with irritation: “Jesus Christ, always yakin'!''..
TRADUZIONE: Potreste tradurre questo enunciato con “Che cazzo, sempre a baccaia'.”.   Non potreste tradurre la prima parola con “Gesù” -- infatti, anche le signore italiane per bene usano Gesù come esclamazione, mentre nell'inglese dei bassi londinesi Jesus è una parolaccia in quanto “pronounced in vain”. Del resto, dato il vostro pubblico, nessuno si scandalizzerà per una parolaccia. Pertanto che cazzo è almeno un esito possibile.. In quanto al termine “to yak”, non lo potreste tradurre con “chiacchierare” perché il termine italiano è troppo educato e l'autore vuole poter parlare del sottofondo di volgarità nei discorsi tra madre e figlia.  E' vero che un termine gergale romano come bacaiare è teoricamente fuori luogo in una scena che ha luogo a Londra ma è probabile che il vostro pubblico non si accorgerà, essendo talmente abituato ad usarlo per sfizio radical chic. .
 

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